Soccer Season Has Come to an End

Last night was great for many reasons, the largest being that my sister made a surprise visit to see the last soccer game of the season, which made us all happy, Madame Stella included.

I think we had a wonderful soccer team because all of the parents just wanted our children to have fun and we cheered just as hard for the opposing team as our own. The kids were definitely a happy bunch because when they weren't on the field, they were busy playing tag, doing forward rolls and just generally goofing off with each other.

Unfortunately, not all the teams were like that, but thankfully, we were not assigned to one of those. Last night's opposing team was pretty rough. The players were little brutes who deliberately pushed, tripped, elbowed and shoved our kids even when they didn't have the ball! It was definitely strange behavior because if it was a proper soccer game, they would have gotten thrown out of the game for playing like that. One kid actually targeted the most talented player on our team and gave him a bloody nose and the coach still didn't take him out of the game! I don't know if the coach taught them to do that or just ended up with a bunch of bullies? To make matters worse, the kids on the opposing team were actually very good soccer players with an impressive skill level, so that made that kind of behavior all the more bizarre. Ugh. I want to support my son in whatever he wants to do and he has fun and says he loves it and he's sad that the season is over, but if we ended up on one of those teams next year...I guess we'll just wait and see.

The team was thrilled with their gift bags (they were filled with raisins, granola bars, fake tattoos, kazoos, and a ball that sticks when you throw it against the wall) and every single one of them immediately jammed the kazoo into their mouth. It made for some pretty great pictures. It made me so happy to see how excited they were. One mother, however, obviously did not appreciate my effort. When she saw me put down the box of the gift bags, she said right to my face, "Well, isn't someone the overachiever parent." I just smiled at her, but what a jerk. Um...hi, yeah, I was on snack duty last night, it was the last game of the season and I was our team's Team Parent. Wouldn't it have been a little weird if I didn't do something special? The other times I was on snack duty I gave out raisins or granola bars the same as everyone else. Oh well, the kids loved seeing their picture on their bag and the other parents thought they were great. Can't let one bad apple spoil the bunch or some other cliche, right?